About Us
Daniel M. Gross
Campus Writing & Communication Coordinator
PhD, Rhetoric, University of California, Berkeley, 1998
Daniel M. Gross is Professor of English and Affiliate Faculty in the Critical Theory Emphasis. His research in rhetoric runs along three tracks: writing and communication, history of the disciplines, and medical humanities. When it comes to writing and communication, Professor Gross has been deeply influenced by his time at the University of Iowa, where he worked with a large Communication Studies department typical of public universities in the Midwest, and where writing and speaking pedagogies are deeply integrated. His publications in writing and communication include an interview in Composition Forum on “The Passions of Rhetoric and Composition,” and a critical piece in the journal Pedagogy on the Framework for Success in Postsecondary Writing.
In terms of history of the disciplines, Professor Gross has been working since his dissertation on rhetoric and the origins of the human sciences, arguing that the early human sciences including psychology, politics, and pedagogy were first rhetorical arts designed to move people, before they were partially reconfigured as descriptive sciences. Publications along these lines include a piece in the Quarterly Journal of Speech, and a forthcoming book Being-Moved: Rhetoric As the Art of Listening (University of California Press 2020). His work in the medical humanities focuses on emotion, also from a history-of-rhetoric perspective.
Publications include The Secret History of Emotion: From Aristotle’s Rhetoric to Modern Brain Science (Chicago 2007), and Uncomfortable Situations: Emotion between Science and the Humanities (Chicago 2017). He has received grants from the Ford Foundation, the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation, the National Endowment for the Arts, the National Endowment for the Humanities, and from the University of California Office of the President, which has recently funded his gamification, and online teaching initiatives.
Iveta Cruse
Assistant to the Campus Writing & Communication Coordinator
MA, Sofia University St. Kliment Ohridski
Iveta started her administrative career at the University of California, Irvine in 2000. She graduated from Sofia University St. Kliment Ohridski in Bulgaria with a MA in Italian Language and Literature. She also attended courses at the University of Perugia, Italy. Her interests involve philological studies, linguistics, translations, and poetry.
Leah Senatro
Campus Writing & Communication Fellow
Leah is an English PhD candidate at UCI working towards completing the Medical Humanities emphasis. Her research explores the rhetorical consequences of the body and sensorial experience as well as digital multimodal composition. She earned her bachelor’s degree in English and philosophy from Santa Clara University in 2019.
About
The position of Campus Writing & Communication Coordinator (CWCC) was created in 2001 on the heels of extensive reviews of lower- and upper-division writing. UCI has long had strong writing requirements for first year students, including a range of composition courses, a 3-quarter interdisciplinary option (Humanities Core Course), and extensive support for students learning Academic English and ESL. Undergraduates are also required to take an upper-division writing course in a discipline (W courses).
Honoring the decentralized nature of disciplinary instruction at UCI, the CWCC was conceived of as a way to support and link writing efforts across the campus. The office, run by the coordinator and supported by a graduate student researcher and an administrative assistant, serves faculty who teach W courses, helping them to improve instruction, and offers consultation to faculty, instructors, and TAs who are working on writing curricula or pedagogy in any capacity. The CWCC conducts workshops, invites speakers, collects and distributes resources on writing in the disciplines and writing courses at UCI, and conducts writing program assessment and research.
Our goals are to
- assist faculty in the disciplines in improving writing instruction in upper-division W courses,
- support the building of writing assignments into other disciplinary courses,
- create possibilities for faculty to reflect on writing pedagogy in general and on the modes and standards of writing specific to each discipline,
- generate opportunities for students to work together on writing projects and to assist each other in writing development,
- consult with departments on the development of coordinated writing plans,
- assess upper-division writing, and
- forge stronger links between first-year composition and writing in the disciplines.
We invite inquiries on any of these topics, and we look forward to contributing to the multi-disciplinary culture of writing at UCI.
Philosophy
The following principles guide the CWCC in its various endeavors:
- Writing is a mode of learning as well as a way of communicating disciplinary knowledge.
- Writing is discipline-specific: i.e., people write within discourse communities, each with its own audiences, genres, forms, and standards.
- Writing is always a rhetorical act, emerging from a context, addressing an audience, and serving a purpose.
- Learning to write is a life-long process within which the four years of undergraduate study play a crucial role.
Location
We’re located on the ground level at Science Library (building 520 on the campus map), the first door to your left as you enter the library’s courtyard area from Ring Road.